Towards converting a production database schema to XML schema

Abstract

Widespread usage of computers in large companies led to the development of different application specific databases at geographically different locations. Heterogeneous applications need to communicate and exchange data. It is vital to for engineering enterprises to have interoperability. Due to its generic design and high portability across heterogeneous environments, XML is more suitable for information exchange over the internet. It is widely accepted as one of the primary standards for data exchange and representation. The present work aims at introducing a powerful algorithm that converts a relational database schema (RDS) to XML schema definition (XSD). It is based on the constraint preserving mapping (CPM) algorithm. The algorithm proposed is capable of converting an RDS to XSD while preserving the semantic constraints of the underlying relational database. An application capable of achieving this task is developed based on the proposed algorithm. The method proved to be a novel approach for the schema conversion.